Cult and religion? "Original sin" of a religion?

As a follow up of my previous post, I'll trace back a bit and look at how a religion is formed. By looking into the difference between a religion and a cult, we see a critical problem of a religion.

religions? Religion?

When people found out my major as religion, they often asked me: Which religion are you studying? After I've told them that I study all kinds of religions, they would then follow up with this question: Do you believe in God? I don't think most of them were satisfied by my answer. Maybe this is what they were looking for.

Which way is the right way?

When you ask a corporate CEO, the corporate CEO would say:

the most profitable way

When you ask a Christian, the Christian would say:

Jesus' way

When you ask a Buddhist, the Buddhist would say:

the middle way

When you ask an atheist, the atheist would say:

the logical way

When you ask a philosopher, the philosopher would say:

I don't know

When you ask a scientist, the scientist would say:

the scientific method

When you ask an enlightened person, the enlightened person would say:

Any way

When you ask God, God would say:

No way

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Something I wrote a while ago.  Interpret it as you will.

Laozi and Confucius (老子與孔子)

Twenty-five hundred years ago, Confucius once went to Luoyang to consult with Laozi. Their conversation illustrates the difference between the two legends.

《道德經》 Tao Te Ching: Chapter 1

The Tao that can be told

is not the eternal Tao.

The name that can be named

is not the eternal name.

The Tao is both named and nameless.

As nameless it is the origin of all things;

as named it is the Mother of 10,000 things.

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery;

ever desiring, one sees only the manifestations.

And the mystery itself is the doorway

to all understanding.

第一章

道可道，非常道，名可名，非常名。無名，天地之始，有名，萬物之母。故常無欲以觀其妙，常有欲以觀其徼，此兩者同出而異名，同謂之玄，玄之又玄，眾妙之門。

Click for analysis.

《道德經》 The Tao Te Ching Project

Unlike Descartes and many modern philosophers, Laozi (老子) didn't attempt to use deductive reasoning to find the truth and prove it to the world.  He already knew about the ultimate truth.  Not only did he know, he experienced and lived it!  Therefore, people who met him kept bugging him to teach them "the way"; Tao Te Ching is the result of those requests.

I'll interpret the Tao Te Ching verse by verse (81 chapters/sections/verses (章) in total) with the help of the book that I'm studying, Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao, which already did what I'm about to do.  I'll take what I like from the book's interpretation and combine it with my personal take.  The most amazing thing about the Tao Te Ching is its open-endedness; even the same person can have different interpretations of the text in different times, let alone different individuals.  There's no one "right" way to interpret it.  As you read it, you'll only learn the things that are relevant to you.  Tao Te Ching is like a lamp that shown you the way that's always within you.

First Ever Meditation Afterthought

Meditation is basically a practice where you sit still for a period of time while keeping your mind still.  After over a year of wanting to practice meditation, I finally did it earlier today.  I did attempted meditating several times before.  The first time was using the Chakra Balancing box set that I bought with CDs and a study book guiding you through meditations for different chakra.  Half way through the introduction, the author told me I cannot have any financial worries.  Apparently I was broke as hell so I couldn't continue.  When I looked for some direction for meditating, I found more kinds of meditations than I could count.  That's when I lost interest and thought "why does it have to be so damn complicated?'.  I also went to learningmeditation.com and tried several audio guided meditations but I never went very deep.  Today I just decided to meditate on my own, so I just sat on my bed and close my eyes and started focusing on my mind without any music or guide.  What I saw and felt during the 35mins after the jump.